Re: [libreoffice-users] What version?

At the risk of adding to the "political" noise...

On Sat, 09 Aug 2014 09:46:12 -0400
Kracked_P_P---webmaster <webmaster@krackedpress.com> wrote:

[snip]
> For MS Office, the formats ending with
> "x" is a problem even for their older version.  MSO 2007 might have
> trouble reading DOCX files created from the newer versions, even
> though they are all called a DOCX file.  MSO keeps changing things
> inside the "x" file formats, especially the latest version.
[snip]
> Still get some "x" files emailed to me and most work fine for me
> and LibreOffice.  It seems that every major version release of
> LibreOffice seems to get these "x" documents to read better and
> better - for those few that do not work well.  I have a Windows
> laptop that has some Word "reader" packages from MS and the
> problem .docx files are a problem with the latest Word reader I
> use.  SO it may not be LibreOffice but the version of MS Office
> that sends me these documents.
[snip]

Yup.  In fact: I've seen where people send "x" files to my coworkers,
coworker sends HelpDesk complaint "I can't read this file," I have
them try LibréOffice, and LibréOffice renders it just fine.  Hasn't
happened often, but it has happened.

It's important for individuals and businesses to understand this:
For-profit companies make money off selling you stuff (duh).  They
can't sell you a New Thing if you're happy with the Old Thing.  How
might demand for the New Thing be... enhanced?  Well, I suppose one
way *might* be that what the New Thing creates is subtly incompatible
with the Old Thing.

Not that I'd accuse anybody of *purposely* doing such a
thing--unless it was, you know, necessary or unavoidable ;)

At work we're avoiding that problem, to the extent possible, by
standardizing on MS-Win7 and MSO 2007.  (The former because it's
not too different from MS-WinXP, the latter because it's the
latest that most installs already had.)  It's getting increasingly
difficult to find *legitimate* copies of retail versions of these
packages, but we expect to have the entire organization's upgrade
cycle completed before the supply dries up entirely.

N.B.: For many installs we first try installing only LibréOffice, and
only buy & install MSO if LO absolutely will not work for the user.

As for home: I solved the entire problem once-and-for-all by
replacing my wife's MS-Win install with Linux Mint.  (MS-Win8 was the
last straw, even for her.)

Mind you: I *used* to actually recommend Microsoft solutions for many
users (with caveats). Wouldn't use it, myself, because it just did not
work for me--for the way I use computers.  (Nor did Apple
solutions.)  I feel I can no longer, in good conscience, do so--for a
variety of reasons, not the least of which is the never-ending
incompatibility/upgrade issue, and its associated costs--which are
not insignificant.

Regards,
Jim
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